The world financial recession will make Vietnamese seafood sector weaker this year after it hit several records in 2008, the Vietnam Economic Times reported, citing the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).
The VASEP said the sector’s growth will drop 15 per cent-20 per cent in 2009 from a year earlier. In 2008, the sector gained 9.2 per cent growth, with production output reaching highest figure at 4.58 million tons.
The global economic downturn will badly affect seafood trading this year, the association said, adding that Vietnamese seafood sales at three key markets comprising EU, the U.S. and Japan may fall between 15 per cent and 20 per cent.
Vietnam’s two main seafood items, shrimp and pagansius, will be the hardest hit, the VASEP noted.
Recently, Russia, the most potential market for Vietnamese pangasius, banned imports of Vietnamese pangasius for failures to meet its safety requirements.
Meanwhile, shrimp, which contributed 40 per cent of export revenue to the seafood sector, is facing with fierce competition from price decrease of vanamei shrimp.
Nguyen Huu Dung, general secretary of the VASEP said economic downturn prompted consumers to use lower price food, resulting in decrease in seafood consumption.
To deal with the difficulties, he advised Vietnamese companies to give more priority to seafood quality in order to improve the country’s seafood competitiveness.
In 2008, Vietnam raked in US$4.5 billion from seafood exports. (Vneconomy)
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